


Chapters of the First Chosen

by ceceliatarleton



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, episode ardyn kingly clash, follow down the rabbit hole of ardyn's mental state, more tags and characters to be added if this continues, through endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceceliatarleton/pseuds/ceceliatarleton
Summary: The story of Ardyn Lucis Caelum's life was retold and rewritten many times in many hands. Some pages fell out and new ones were stuffed in their place, and one day it will be a story of destiny for gods and mortals.





	Chapters of the First Chosen

At first there was nothing for Ardyn, but anger and pain when he came to Angelgard. His world was the dark and the hooks sunk into his skin. He had not existed before, and nothing could exist after. Then the memories came back, and with them the shame. At first, the self-styled Healer King embraced good and bad, reclaiming what made him human with the desperation of a man lost for days in the desert gulping at an oasis pool. He repeated memories of Aera and of the plague, of growing up with his brother playing games of climbing trees that then morphed into playing games of commanding swordsmen against one another, of everything that made his life a life in the hopes that he could reclaim the sanity that was lost before he even started counting the years in his prison and remain human. He created his own oral tradition, his own one-man history of the world, a cyclical story that started _in the beginning Ardyn Lucis Caelum was born in the nest of a Zu ten minutes past midnight while his father kept watch for enemies or the return of the mother Zu who had abandoned her eggs and his mother entreated the astrals for safe passage and a better life for her son_ , and ended _Somnus Lucis Caelum begged the forgiveness of the astrals for striking their chosen king and of his brother as his sword struck true and Ardyn Lucis Caelum died only to be reborn at ten past midnight under the light of a full moon on Angelgard_.

As most oral history, details were added or struck from the record over time. Generations romanticized or misinterpreted parts, then swore their version was the true history. Ardyn and Ardyn had long debates, that were only settled by intercession of Ardyn, the true authority.

 

A self-flagellating breed of despair caught him at one point. Ardyn saw a reflection of himself in his mind that was far from human, felt burning tar in his vein instead of blood and viscous ooze staining his cheeks when he tried to cry, and when he thought of the life before becoming a monster only remembered himself demanding the love of the people, calling himself chosen, bolstering his own power, and making sure every plague victim he healed knew it was by **his** grace. During these days, he taught himself the lesson that his wretched state, his bondage, and all other suffering were the results of his own hubris, and his brother naught but the vessel of the gods meting out the punishment for believing himself better than they.

 

Of course, within five years, the past was rewritten again. Had he called himself chosen or had the people, **_his people_** , called him so and thrown himself at the feet of his chocobo, hailing him as the king he never asked to be? Hadn't he modestly rejected their claims and praise, humble wanderer he was, only to have them keep forcing greater and greater mantles upon him? It seemed the light around him had been golden like the noonday rays of the sun and not the amber to red of dying light. He had not forgotten the astrals were the ones that blessed him and worked through him. _They_ were the ones who had forgotten _him_ when their names had been forever on his lips. Gods of light save us from darkness blight was the mantra he'd healed under, not his own name. He had never said he was more than the gods. He had never taken the scourge into himself on purpose for his own gain, to extend his own life. He had only meant to heal and that was the only way.

He had only done what was asked.

The astrals had trapped him.

They made him fall.

 

If he ever fell.

He never fell, yet they punished him anyway.

It was Somnus. His jealousy. Somnus was the monster. Somnus had subverted and twisted the will of the Six and the crystal and they had let him.

All had turned their back on the chosen.

It was a slippery slope. The anger came back and the truth, what small portion of it remained after the first million retellings and the years of casting himself as the monster when that wasn't the full story either, was lost.

Then came Laurent Izunia, the first new chapter in the book of Ardyn, a story in his own right, assimilated into the larger narrative of The Accursed Savior when Ardyn lay his hands upon his chest to subdue a threat (reached into his chest and ripped out his soul to leave a snarling monster behind?) when his prison was opened to a new world.

Then came dozens more like Izunia--or more like Izunia than like Ardyn, all men of the future, of cars and airships and new languages--hand fed to him by a bright-eyed Verstael Besithia who took copious notes he crowed about over lavish dinners. They became Ardyn and Ardyn became them. He was Izunia's bored apathy at a life wasted but too late to change. He was a Niflheim soldier's burning hate of Lucis. He was a former lab assistant's affronted fashion sensibilities. He was a homeless man's addiction to wine that Ardyn couldn't taste enough in his current state to enjoy like he remembered. Rarely, he was himself and when he was he didn't fully recognize it.

That was even before the Infernian was introduced and turned him fully to a need to destroy. What man, even immortal, could subjugate a god? The god subjugated the man and set him to turn the world that called them both betrayer into ruin.

Or perhaps that was just another story Ardyn told himself to avoid taking responsibility.

He may have been legion but only one voice spoke and it was not Ifrit's.

Not externally at least, but all memories, all chapters, except the original Books of Ardyn were filled only with hate, sadness, and human vice. Every new acquisition showed no happy memory for long, just more reasons all should die in darkness if they weren't slowly taking themselves there already. Someone had to be controlling that, Ardyn thought in some lucid moments. Aera was goodness personified, but not all light, laughter and virtue could have left the world with her.

Then again, voices whispered that Aera had lied to him and manipulated him for years. She spoke to the astrals and they to her. She had known what was to come. She was a tool of Bahamut--willing participant, willing temptress, willing sacrifice. Ardyn knew only lies, no truths.

When their daemons were killed, the memories and influences belonging to other voices in his head left Ardyn. Most times he didn't realize it. He took more into the legion than left. The loss of the Infernian made a difference, but it was too late. The world was dark, too late to save the innocent, and The King was at the door, just in time to punish the guilty.

Most of the legion that was left loved The King, had lived and died waiting for and trusting in The King. As he ran his sword through The King and The King fell limp, prophecy unfulfilled, that love reached Ardyn and as a laugh of victory withered and died on his lips it was with tears of ichor that Ardyn consumed Noctis Lucis Caelum's story, feeling the regret that he'd outgrown decades even before the Infernian. Noctis tore through the legion, and Ardyn fell as if he had been the one mortally injured.

There was no hate in The King. There had been once, a beautiful, burning need that even then screamed justice and an end to pain, righteous rage more than anything else. And there was so much love and selflessness. Noctis had the story Ardyn had once told about himself, if not the story he had once had. Ardyn had always known. He had, under the influence of Ifrit or the legion or his own warped mind, once taken pride in orchestrating fitting parallels, his own stage play where he stole crown and home, snuffed short the Oracle who loved him, and burned towns to the ground when the son of many sons of Somnus could only get there too late. He saw things differently now, felt them so keenly it felt as if the sun had risen after all, his healing powers had left him, and he was being slowly prised apart.

Noctis opened the door and love continued to rush in, a million voices or more with their own stories Ardyn had already thought he knew but the rest of the legion could only voice in that moment. Last of all was a story that started in an abandoned Zu nest with a young refugee couple that carried the blood of kings and destiny. It was the story of a man both monster and savior and also neither of those things.

Ardyn moaned and writhed on the ground, and for the first time in longer than the memories of any in the legion, he begged the astrals for favor, knowing he wasn't the owed party. Bahamut took pity and gave his boon in a way typical for the Draconian. Ardyn was returned to battle The King again, to die and make way for The King's sacrifice. The prophecy was proclaimed fulfilled and rest granted.

But it was still not right.

Ardyn rejected his rest. It wasn't made for him after all these centuries anyway. The King folded easily into the glowing afterlife, but Ardyn Lucis Caelum was a healer that hadn't healed and a savior that had not yet saved. The monster could rest, job done, but the light could not.

"There is more for me to do."

He didn't ask for blessing he was not worthy of. He begged for atonement and to meet the destiny he had perverted even before Somnus and Bahamut had done their part. Bahamut declared it too late. The circle was closed, and The Accursed wasn't the only one who was owed rest.

Leviathan, however, was sympathetic to Ardyn's wishes, as far as she was sympathetic to any whelp that had been born human. The Accursed had made many knees bow and hearts tremor with fearful reminder of their mortality and smallness. In the Tidemother's estimation, that made him worthy of her boon. She cared not for prophecies or of saving more humans, even knowing it would mean more worship, but it could be amusing to see what the First Chosen of Too Many Names would do with another chance.

He would not change his fate, what he changed was fate in the first, that was the rule of human lives, all astrals agreed. So Ardyn was allowed to ride the Tidemother's fin back to Altissa to before the light of the last Oracle faded, a new last chapter soon to be written for many of the astrals’ chosen.

**Author's Note:**

> First toe dip into the FFXV fandom, and first fanfic written since I was a literal child and FF.net was the place to be, so please indulge my neurosis and nerves and tell me if there's any merit, and if you would be interested in this continuing into the multi-part AU/fix-it the piece this was originally sketched out as or if it works better just left as a trippy glimpse under the hood of what a mess Ardyn's head with a little hope spot ending, because right now I am torn. The future chapters would likely be less “artsy” and scattered in writing style than what I adopted in this piece/possible prologue as the focus shifts to action rather than showing Ardyn’s madness and how the different stories we have been given or have written in our minds about Ardyn may be unreliable or only parts to a whole.


End file.
